Number Two

by digby

Via Kevin Drum I see that the rumor about the usual suspects running around trying to provoke war with Iran even as the administration is ostensibly trying to ratchet down the trash talk has been confirmed. Why am I not surprised?

Sometimes I have to wonder what people from the past would think of something like this, though:

"We fully believe that Foggy Bottom is committed to the diplomatic track," one European official said Wednesday. "But there's some concern about the vice president's office."


Think about that. Until recently, the Vice President was a second rate funtionary who went to funerals. Now he's so powerful that he's running a shadow presidency and nobody really knows what to do about it. Certainly nobody thinks the empty codpiece will do anything about it. In fact, it's just assumed that Uncle Dick has ordered him to STFU and go out and babble incoherently while the big boys do the work.

In fact, for such a tough guy, that Bush sure is a wimpy little doormat, isn't he? Cheney and the neocons basically tell him go fuck himself on a regular basis and he just takes it. No wonder he's punding his chest and screeching "I'm the president!" to his Texas pals.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews reminds everyone daily that voters want to vote for the man who seems the manliest (competence is for eggheads) but I can't help but suspect that the rest of the country is no longer so convinced that the right way to pick a president is to ask yourself whether he resembles a member of the Village People. We've just spent six years with the fake cowboy and look how well that's turned out.

And clearly we should start paying more attention to Vice Presidents too...


.